


The Shop Brat Life- Snowday

by Princesszellie



Series: The Shop Brat Life [15]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Carshop! Au, Gen, Herc has another bad day at work, Mechanic! AU, Snowday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princesszellie/pseuds/Princesszellie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snow days are always fun! OR- Not if your Herc Hansen.....</p><p>Part 15/? of the Shop Brat Life series of one shots based on my life as the boss's kid at a large car dealership.</p><p>(P.s.  Max is NOT the third thing in Herc's list of most precious things. :p )</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shop Brat Life- Snowday

Herc Hansen was one of those people who never called into work and who never showed up even five minutes late anywhere. He ran his life on military time and took his work a bit too seriously for that kind of sloppy bullshit. That was why days like today just drove him _nuts_. It was bitter cold, windy and it was snowing like someone had knocked a snow globe off the dresser and all the little white bits hadn’t settled down and buried the gingerbread house alive yet.

He stomped the snow off his boots as he came into the house. It had just taken him almost two hours to dig out _one_ of the three cars in the driveway. He was now one hour late for work, and when he called in to tell someone he might be late not a soul answered the phone. That pissed him off too.

He reached for the keys to the freed car and it was probably for the best that it was Striker. She was the best equipped for this kind of weather. He really had no desire to try Lucky Seven’s handling in three inch an hour snowfall on unplowed roads; no the old tank would suit him just fine.

But first he had better ‘ask’ his son if it would be okay to take his car. Herc made a quick stop in Chuck’s room. School was canceled today and Chuck was taking advantage of this rarity by sleeping in. “Hey Charlie,” Herc said softly, “I’m taking Striker to work okay?”

Silence. Perfect. Kid was really asleep, probably going to sleep all day. Herc was momentarily jealous- lucky little brat. He kissed the top of Charlie’s head, ignored the little whine of protest and pulled the covers up around his shoulders. He ruffled Max’s ears and ignored his grumbles too. On his way out the door Herc kissed Angela, who was working from home today, and as he cranked up Strikers shitty old heat system he was glad that his three most precious things would be safe from this seriously crappy weather.

The car was hardly warm by the time he finally rolled into the dealership; which was over two hours and forty- five minutes late. On a normal day he still had the longest commute of any of the other managers, but today it was seriously ugly and had taken twice as long. And surprise, surprise he was the _only_ manager to bother showing up.

The place was a ghost town; as he walked through the front office the only sound that greeted him where the endlessly ringing phones. Getting angrier as he went deeper into the building, Herc didn’t see a single person. The only clue that he wasn’t the only human life form in the area was the trail of snowy foot prints leading back outside into the winter wonderland.

Herc tossed his keys and bag in his office and went to check out the bays. There were tombs that had more going on than his service bay. It was so cold in the huge open space that he could see his breath, and when he opened the door there was no noticeable change in temperature on either side of the scale.

The sight that greeted him was like a scene out of Hoth. The rows of cars had been replaced with a field of perfect white marshmallows. A bitter gust of wind swirled a large pocket of snow from the roof and into Herc’s face obscuring his view, but when it cleared he finally noticed the bundled up little ants moving between the piles of flaked coconut that were standing in for their inventory. So this is where all his lackeys went.

It was the Big Dig on a small scale. Herc pulled his gloves back on and stepped out to join the fray. “Hey boss man.” Tendo greeted him from behind the two scarves he had wrapped around his face. Only his eyes showed. “I rallied the troops.” He mock saluted.

“I see this,” Herc resisted the urge to salute back, “Its slow going.”

“Yeaaaaaaaaaah.” Tendo sighed, “Probably going to take most of the day…”

Herc had to agree, but it wasn’t like any customers would be beating down the doors to look at cars today, so it really wouldn’t matter. He surveyed the scene and it was bleak; the Becket’s were shoveling out the retracting bay doors, and the entire sales team was turned out in full thermal gear and were clearing off their potential pay checks. Even Newt and Herman were brushing off cars, their bickering still audible over the howling wind.

“Where’s the loader?” Herc asked.

“Aleksis was finishing up out front last time I checked.” Tendo shouted over the sound of a snow blower being pushed past. Herc nodded and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He might as well walk the battle field and check in with the various work groups. He started with Newt and Herman as they seemed to be going the slowest. Most salesmen hated having to do lot-monkey work and these two were no exception.

As he was listening to Herman bitching about Newt’s lack of a system for clearing off the half foot of snow that had accumulated (and was _still_ accumulating) on every car, a change in everyone’s behavior keyed his sixth Dad Sense. Something was wrong. There was suddenly a lot of shouting from the front side of the building.

Herc broke into a slogging run through the snow and as he rounded the corner of the building he entered a slow motion horror movie. The Becket’s had finished clearing the bay doors and had started on the pedestrian doors, but at that second they were yelling and flailing their arms. Tendo was frozen like a deer in the headlights, his mouth hanging open behind the scarves.

Aleksis was cutting back an existing snowbank, or what he thought was a snow bank but was actually a large SUV. While the whole world screamed at him, Aleksis lifted what he thought was a big pile of snow and lifted it into the air. He couldn’t see that it was in fact a white Rendezvous cleverly camouflaged as snow.

“Oh Christ!” Herc swore, adding his voice to the fray. “Aleksis stop!”

The big Russian couldn’t hear them over the engine roar of the loader or over the earbuds blaring Ukrainian hardhouse that were hidden under his large furry hat. Besides his English language skills could be very selective and Herc wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t one of those times when he was playing coy. There was just too much yelling and flailing going on for him to not be consciously ignoring……oh shit!

“No no no!” Oh dear god….anything but that….Herc didn’t know what to do. He was paralyzed with the same exact same dismay and fear as everyone else. They were literally powerless to stop this impending train wreck- which was also literal.

Aleksis swung the loader around with the SUV rocking precariously in the bucket and proceeded to dump what he thought was a pile of nice soft snow on to the roof of another half-buried car.

Herc couldn’t even manage to vocalize the scream that was on his lips, it was like his vocal cords had frozen over, just like his fingers and toes. With a muffled crunching sound the Rendezvous settled on the roof of the much smaller Century. Aleksis lowered the bucket and _finally_ witnessed his handy work. His jaw dropped and he couldn’t cut the engine fast enough.

The only sound now was the falling snow. When the wind gusted suddenly the SUV shifted a little and made a low grinding noise. It was like a knife cutting into Herc’s chest. He became aware that everyone was staring at him, even Aleksis from inside the loader’s cab. Clearly they were expecting something from him….oh…right….

The stream of curses that ripped out of Herc Hansen were varied, colorful and about to become the stuff of legend. Raleigh Becket would forever swear that he had never heard half of the words that Herc used that morning before in his life, or again at any point after. It was a blue streak that would hang like a cloud over the dealership for decades. At this point what he was saying was more shocking then having two cars stacked on each other during a blizzard.

Herc finally ran out of things to say or more accurately _scream_. Now he was just tired. Why had he broken his back this morning to get here? For this shit?! He should have bailed out like all the other managers and just stayed in bed with Charlie and Max like apparently all the _other_ sane people had done. Fuck his life. Just fuck it.

By now everyone had gathered at the front and were staring in abject horror, Herc included. He really had no answer for this. Seriously, couldn’t Stacker catch one of these bullshit things just _once_!?

Raleigh, who was not known for his smart decisions and had confirmed suicidal tendencies, sidled up to Herc, “What are you going to do?” he asked rather boldly.

Herc looked at him sidewise. Raleigh started to question several of his life choices including this one, but surprisingly Herc didn’t murder him for his brazen audacity.

“Me? Nothing.” He said levelly. “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” Their open mouth gaping stares were quite rewarding, “Now get back to work…all of you!” he barked. And as the masses scrambled to go back to being busy Herc went back inside to make coffee. That might be the only ‘perk’ to being the boss today and by god he was going to take it. Besides, he really had no idea what to do about their obscene totem pole and as far as he was concerned until the snow started to melt it probably couldn’t get worse. And it wasn’t likely the snow was going to melt any time soon.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. I live where we have ungodly hellish winters....which whether I want to acknowledge it or not is once again fast approaching. Yay. (shoot me). When we have one of our HUGE snow events, which is at least twice a winter some times more, it can snow at rates of like five inches an hour. After such events the lot was always a battle ground where it was basically a melee to get cars uncovered , and upon which on one horrifying occasion, someone mistakenly assumed a large SUV worth over $40k was a snow bank and moved it on top of another $30k sedan. Somewhere is picture evidence of this event. On another occasion a different offender backed the loader (which btw was HUGEASS) into a car and totaled it. Needless to say both of these people lost large equipment privileges. 
> 
> For reference these are the two cars that were involved:  
> Buick Rendezvous: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Rendezvous  
> Buick Century: http://www.cars.com/buick/century/2000/specifications 
> 
> Please note the size and weight differences. :p 
> 
> And also, if you have never owned a Century your life is incomplete ,and if you HAVE and say it wasn't the BEST car you ever owned you are a god damned liar and also a fool. <3


End file.
